Blinds & Shutters - Issue 4-2020

PROFILE
lives - uninvited and definitely unwanted -
resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and
mass disruption to us all, we looked at the
various chemical elements that go into our
formulations and worked to see if any
combination of these could help combat
the virus.
After a number of highly focused days
we identified what we considered to be the
formulation that offered the best chance of
having an impact and applied it to
Louvolite’s Carnival fabric, both light
filtering Carnival and Carnival Blackout.
After our routine and standard product
performance testing, manufacturing and
hanging tests, samples of the coated
Carnival and Carnival Blackout fabrics were
quickly sent off to an independent testing
house specialising in virology, this was just
as the country went into lock down.
Wow – so many things happened to our
world during the following months. Our
business went into hibernation with only a
skeleton staff being maintained to accept
raw materials that had been ordered weeks
previously and already en route.
In addition, we maintained service to our
operations overseas whilst limiting supply
at home to those serving the NHS and
care homes. The associated immediate
impact on our private lives has been life
changing for many and who knows what
the long-term impact on future
generations may be.
As the country started to ease into the
“new normal”, Louvolite started to bring
teams of production colleagues back into
work. Carnival production restarted using
the coating formulation as had been
production tested and submitted to the
laboratory for testing. Weeks went by and
changes to our business and our
customers’ businesses continued to throw
up challenges that had never before been
considered.
In early June we received our test report
from the Independent Test laboratory - to
be absolutely honest, with all the other
challenges that we were facing at that time
we hadn’t given this much thought over
the previous weeks. Once received we had
to read it a few times to sure we fully
understood the results. We knew from the
report in the medical Lancet Journal that
Coronavirus can remain active on fabric
for up to 72 hours.
The tests on Louvolite Carnival fabrics
had shown that 99% of the Coronavirus
introduced onto Carnival fabrics had been
eliminated in 1 hour.
This was absolutely amazing and we
quickly ensured that our IP team were
busy writing the document that would,
when filed, bring intellectual protection to
the active formulation and coating methods
used to create Coronasafe.
Within two more weeks Louvolite had
created a simple eshot that summarised the
new and unique feature that can be
attributed to a blind manufactured using
Louvolite Carnival Coronasafe fabric. It has
been established that the performance of
Coronasafe will last up to the lifetime of
the blind depending on the cleaning regime.
So will Louvolite Carnival Coronasafe
fabrics change your life? No. Are they a
cure all product? Absolutely not.
That said, when the typical person,
school or nursing home wants to ensure
that they have done everything they can to
help protect the people they care for from
the disaster that is Coronavirus and they
want or need to purchase a blind - Carnival
Coronasafe fabrics will offer that extra layer
of security that other fabrics do not.
Ask yourself – if you were in their care
what would you want them to select?
14 Blinds & Shutters • ISSUE FOUR 2020